Connection Archives - Page 2 of 11

You Should Watch Dating Shows

You guys should be watching TONS of dating shows.

I’ve watched almost every episode of Blind Date, Millionaire Matchmaker, Elimidate, Singled Out, etc…reality TV’s finest programming.

I’m sure I picked up a million how to’s, do’s and dont’s, and pop culture references. If you’re not consistently meeting women this is a must do. And guess what, these shows are immensely entertaining so this exercise is easy. While nerds were playing Starcraft, I was watching reality dating shows.

Watching dates is one of the best ways to study human psychology. It is politically incorrect, fascinating, and brutally honest, all at the same time.

For example, watch Episode 12 of Millionaire Matchmaker with Sheree and spot all the problems. Here’s one Leverage Program member’s analysis of the whole episode, and he nailed it:

Girl 1 – Tall blonde girl. Cool. Well traveled. Plays sports. Blah blah.
Girl 2 – Project manager chick. Enthusiastic about traveling. I forget the rest.
Girl 3 – Ballet chick. Connected with all his biographical details. “I played tennis.” “Love spending time with my family.” Well-played.
Girl 4 – Drummer chick. Lives with mom. Fun.

Girl 3 got picked because she knew what the guy wanted and connected with him on all those points. Nothing the other girls could really do honestly since they didn’t have as much in common with this dude. I need to be a baller so girls fight over me on TV. Life goals.

Date was good because they made a solid connection that wasn’t forced. Doing the fun thing at beginning was cool to lighten the mood. It’s kind of dumb at the same time because the girl is already into him before he even meets her, so it’s basically a layup. Not really realistic compared to real life unless you have power or a cool social circle. More life goals.

Dude 1 – Smiley guy. Chill. Asked her age. Probably had no chance anyway.
Dude 2 – Producer. Laid back. Connected with her on traveling. ‘Am I the winner’ joke was funny. Finally that bitch smiled.
Dude 3 – Opened by making her feel kind of special. Removal of sunglasses after first couple sentences while maintaining eye contact was cool. He’s chill.

Dude 3 is a beast. He was cool and knew how to connect with her.

On date, dude is always in a good mood. He’s cool. Definitely smashes a lot. Painting while drinking wine was a cool date idea. I want to do that sometime. Sheree is painful. Cold and ruining the flow. I like when she tried to tell him to tell her a joke and he was basically like “nah, I don’t play myself.” Too many red flags with this woman. She’s cold. Stay away.

Note the difference between the men/women who get selected and the ones who don’t. Why did he choose her? Why did she choose him?

One of the biggest insights of dating is how few people look at it from the other person’s perspective. This is really hard, so putting effort into improving your pattern recognition here is a great use of your time.

Where You Should Be Meeting Women

by Robbie Leave a Comment

It’s Friday night and you’ve got your dancing shoes on, except you don’t actually care about dancing tonight- you’re single and you are going out to meet women.

You and a buddy are trying to decide where to go. “There’s a new club that just opened, kinda a hipster scene, but the chicks are hot, bro!”

“I’m not into hipster chicks, but whatever…If they’re hot, let’s go check it out!” you respond.

Sound familiar?

Places like that are a waste of the limited free time you have!

Busy guys quickly forget how much the environment of places we go out to affects our ability to meet girls. I know that for me personally, it used to be an ego thing. I wanted to be able to get different types of girls, and I wanted to be good at meeting women everywhere. But for every smoking hot alternative chick I took home, I’d waste a couple of nights getting rejected hard.

So why not make it easier and pick spots where you can meet women that match the characteristics you’re looking for?

Girls do this already! Girls who want to meet black guys go to places with good hip-hop, girls looking for a Latin adventure do salsa, and gold diggers hang out in Canary Wharf.

So just go to places where women are looking for guys like you!

It took me years to get this simple concept (well, I still screw this up from time to time, but I’m getting better), but once I realized it, meeting women became so much more efficient. In my case, I like to date hot lawyers/doctors/accountants, so I hang out at nicer bars that are quiet enough to have a conversation.

So, where could you be successfully meeting women?

1. The train/metro station – She’ll be so impressed you had the courage to approach! If she’s single, it’s usually not too hard to walk away with a number in less than 2-3 minutes (wouldn’t want you to miss the train).

The fact that she’s standing there during rush hour gives you a lot of useful information: She has a job, she’s doing something with her life, she’s probably open to dating guys with serious jobs. And you have a much better idea of what she looks like in the bright lights of a station compared to a dimly lit club.

2. Cocktail bars/lounges – If you’re looking to meet someone classy, go to a classy place. These places have softer music which make conversation easier, and you’re not going to find anyone throwing up in the toilets (until your friends start buying Jaeger).

You’re also more likely to find someone who is employed. The best part about a lounge is that you’ll occasionally find the type of woman who almost never parties who was dragged out by her friends. If you want to stay away from party girls, these places are great!

3. Bars and clubs with a niche – I live 5 minutes away from this awesome whiskey bar, and it seems like whenever I go there, there’s a gorgeous girl who’s out with male colleagues and patiently waiting for some guy to come to come keep her company.

So although the bars a block away from the local university may have have cheap drinks, a 2-dollar cover charge and a bunch of hot college chicks, these girls aren’t gonna talk to you unless your Spotify is 50% the Weeknd (I really hope it isn’t).

4. Out and about during the day

Want to feel an unstoppable sense of social freedom? Learn to meet women during the day while they’re going about their daily business. Even though it violates social norms (don’t worry, we have a way around that), one of the best ways to meet women is to approach them during the day and playfully initiate a conversation.

There’s no competition, you encounter the hottest women possible, and you demonstrate your confidence in a way that most guys never even imagine is possible.

Make life easy on yourself and think before you go out! Just because a place has hot girls, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna be hot for you.

Match your personality traits and your strengths to the types of venues where the women you want to meet spend time.

Embarass Yourself to Overcome Social Anxiety

by Tyler W 2 Comments

One of my favorite Inner Confidence exercises is our social freedom exercises. We do things like lie down in a crowded public area, pretend to text on our phones in a crosswalk until the light turns green and we get honked at, and go to Chipotle and ask for free guacamole. Pictured left is Leverage Program moderator, doing a social freedom exercise during this year’s EuroTrip in Budapest. The point of these exercises is to embarrass yourself in public and learn to deal with whatever reaction you get.

There’s actual psychology behind it: the original cognitive-behavioral therapist Albert Ellis invented the concept in 1968 and called them shame-attacking exercises. They’re an amazingly effective way to overcome social anxiety, and for guys who want to give less of a fuck.

Most people overestimate the costs associated with making a social mistake. They think that if they appear incompetent, crazy, or obnoxious, the results will be drastic and they won’t be able to handle it.

Social freedom exercises prove that most guys’ thoughts about this are wrong. When you do the exercises, you’ll usually find that a lot of people don’t even notice or care. If you lie down in a public place, rather than being shamed, most people won’t even notice you, or at the most they’ll walk around you.

We’re all the star of our own movies, and we don’t really care what’s happening in other people’s movies. People don’t care about you as much as you think they do. They’re probably busy looking at their phones anyway.

Having intentionally awkward conversations, like asking random strangers where the nearest STD clinic is, isn’t as painful as most guys expect it to be. In fact, a lot of times these conversations are hilarious and guys walk away laughing at their newfound social freedom and lack of concern about rejection.

Knowingly violating social norms is a powerful way to overcome your fears.

It’s amazing what you get just by asking. While the point of these exercises is to increase your social freedom, some of them teach another lesson. Most people don’t ask for what they really want. They walk on eggshells, trying to avoid inconveniencing or offending others, when in reality, other people are more than happy to help out.

This morning at Coffee Bean, I asked for a discount on my coffee. The barista gave me a polite no. It didn’t work out that time, but at least I asked.

Later in the day, I took an Uber ride with what must have the world’s most mediocre driver. He decided that taking the freeway would be too efficient, so he randomly exited and doubled the length of the trip. After the ride, instead of just saying “oh well, that’s life,” I asked Uber to give me a credit for my time. It wasn’t like he was completely terrible, but hey, why not ask?

Asking paid off!

There are countless examples that arise in daily life where most people don’t ask for things they can probably get:

If you miss a credit card payment and incur a late fee, you can usually get it removed by calling and asking
If you call your cable company, you can often negotiate a lower rate by having them match a competitor’s price
If you always ask for discounts at stores and restaurants in a funny way, you’ll sometimes get them
If you’re friendly with the airline desk agent, you can get free upgrades when there’s space on the place

What other examples can you think of for developing social freedom and getting free stuff? Post in the comments below.

The 3 F’s: How to Become An Expert At Anything

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

I love when someone tells me that something is “simple, but not easy.” Many of the best things in life fit this saying. Fitness. Nutrition. Confidence. Meeting women. Day game. These areas have simple rules for success, and then they require hard work applying those rules.

Expert performance is the same way. It’s simple, but not easy. How simple? The path to becoming an expert can be broken down into three steps that anyone can understand and apply immediately.

1. Focus

This doesn’t mean a general sense of focus. This is referring to taking a microscope on the skills that comprise expert performance. In this step, you break down the skills required of an expert into components you can do repeatedly.

An example of this concept for approaching looks like this:

Describe signals women give off that demonstrates they want to be approached
Go out into the world and find women giving off these signals
Perform the hook and swoop
Deliver the 1,2,3 in a conversation
etc.

Another example from health and fitness- eating healthy:

Understanding what macronutrients are
Identifying your physique goals
Understanding what macronutrient composition you need to reach your physique goals
Learning the principles behind meal prep
Being able to prepare meals that will help you reach your health goals
etc.

Any individual skill that seems daunting to master becomes simple when you break it down into the tiniest components possible. Instead of asking big questions like “How do I get better at dating?”, ask little questions like “What is something I can do today in 5 minutes that will make me more attractive?”

2. Feedback

There are two ways to get feedback when you’re developing a skill. The first is to analyze your performance and pay attention to the result. If you go out and approach 15 women and 14 tell you that they have boyfriends, that’s a piece of information you can use to assess your skills. If you attempt a new type of joke in a conversation and get a big laugh from it, that’s another piece of information. Every micro-bit of information you gain in actual conversational practice teaches you something about whether your actions are working, or if you need to correct something.

The other method of obtaining feedback is to have a coach or mentor who can do this for you. Self-experimentation and practice is essential to becoming an expert, but it can’t ever happen at the same rate as when you work with a coach. Learning from a true expert gives you all the advantages of years of experience and highly developed mental models. They can take knowledge from their vast range of experiences and provide you with all the specific cues that you need to be successful.

Osmosis is a powerful concept that’s related. You gain feedback automatically when you surround yourself with people who are successful in the areas you’re working on.

3. Fix it

You get good at things by practicing your skills, applying them effectively, assessing the results, and by modifying as needed. Gaining confidence is a process of constant iteration. When you’ve determined your weaknesses, either on your own or with a coach, the next step is to figure out ways to address them.

This is actually a straightforward process when you’ve broken each skill into the smallest possible parts. If you say one line and you don’t get a good reaction, it’s easy to go out and practice that line multiple times, changing little things about it each time. You can change your delivery, you can change your facial expressions, and you can change the situation you deliver it in. By constantly iterating on this skill, you will slowly learn what works and what doesn’t work.

That’s how experts are created. The difference between an expert and a beginner lies in their mental models of their skill. Everyone has ideas about how a skill should be performed, and beliefs about the natural state of the world in relation to that skill. An expert just has much more thoroughly detailed mental models compared to a beginner, and the expert has a lot more models.

These models are developed through real-world feedback, the kind that the 3 F’s make simple.

Why Getting Rejected Is Good

by Tyler W 1 Comment

Why is rejection so scary?

Our society does a great job of instilling shame in men. Growing up as kids, and even into our adult lives, we’re told toxic messages that can hold us back for a lifetime.

Sometimes this shame originates from the people around us. Our parents or friends tell us these messages explicitly: that guy’s a player and you shouldn’t be like that. Or they could be more subtle messages from the media and movies: in order to get a girl to like you, you need to be nice and submissive.

People mean well when they give us this kind of advice. Despite their good intentions, they miss how these messages teach men that their desires are unacceptable, and that being masculine is a bad character trait. Compound this with all the men who have grown up without a strong father figure, and things get even worse.

As a result, men today are scared. They’re scared to approach beautiful women. They’re scared to be masculine for fear of stepping on toes. They’re scared to express who they really are. They’re afraid of meeting women. They live their lives devoid of meaningful companionships, opting instead for the comforting yet numb experiences of internet porn and video games. They walk on eggshells and don’t express themselves.

Men have become deathly afraid of getting rejected by women.

You don’t have to live this way.
It’s ok to be a sexual being.
It’s ok to want to sleep with hot women.
It’s ok to want to sleep with multiple women.
It’s ok to express your desires, feelings, and fears honestly and openly.
It’s ok to be rejected.

What’s the antidote for feeling scared and weak? It’s being a man and facing your fears head-on. With dating, that means getting rejected.

Learning to deal with rejection teaches you how to be a man. Part of being a confident, masculine being is accepting that sometimes things don’t go our way, and being composed when the inevitable disappointments occur.

Connection and companionship give more purpose and meaning to our lives than anything else. You must get rejected to find and create meaningful these relationships with women. Relationships are built on vulnerability. You can’t be vulnerable without risking rejection.

The ONLY way to get better with women is to get rejected more. I wish there was a “hack” or a way around it, but sorry, there just isn’t. Robbie is better with women than anyone you know because he has been rejected more times than anyone you know. And even a guy like Robbie will only expect to connect with about 3 or 4 women out of 10 during day game.

But if there was anything that’s close to a shortcut, it’s this:

The fear of rejection hurts more than actually getting rejected.

Anxiety doesn’t exist in the present moment. Anxiety is only something you feel about the future. When you’re actually feeling it in the present, it’s only fear, which is much easier to deal with. Any amount of fear is something you can and will live through.

The pain of rejection is a short-term experience. Pain is what you experience when you push yourself outside your comfort zone. Think of the struggle of a hard workout at the gym. It’s uncomfortable while you’re experiencing it, but it goes away. You become stronger as a result.

Our minds are amazingly skilled at (wrongly) anticipating how bad it would feel to get rejected. They jump to conclusions, and imagine the worst possible scenario where everyone is watching you, and where you’ll run into the girl you approached again and be embarrassed.

Fortunately, that’s not how it goes. A girl who isn’t interested moves on and forgets about the interaction. Unless you choose to ruminate on it, you do too. You learn something you can use next time. It’s never as bad as you expect it to be.

You will always thank yourself later for being vulnerable and improving your social skills.

There is rarely a downside to being assertive and asking for what you want. The happiest, most fulfilled men are the ones who go after everything they value in life, and it’s not a coincidence that these men are the ones that women are the most drawn to.

The men who get rejected the most are the ones who succeed the most, and so getting rejected is crucial to your dating success.

5 Ways To Always Be In Style

by Carly Leave a Comment

Women pay attention to your clothing. Your personal style can signal your positive, attractive traits, or it can repel hot women away from you. What’s the minimalist, easy way to make sure you always look good? It’s simple. Keep items in your wardrobe that will always be in style, and nail down your fundamentals.

1. The White Shirt
Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 10.16.59 PM
Any combination of crew-neck/long sleeve or long sleeve/v-neck will work. Make sure you get a few of each style that works for you. White gets dirty easily, and to a woman, there’s nothing worse than meeting a nice guy and not being able to concentrate on anything but the red spaghetti stains dripping down his shirt.

2. Ditch the other stains too
I’ll spare the pictures for this one. However, If you have shirts that tend to show when you perspire, don’t wear them out. If you don’t know or its questionable, don’t wear them out… Stay with white, dark greys, dark blues, and black. If you perspire at an uncomfortable amount, look into some over-the-counter medicine or talk with a medical professional. This especially important during day game where she’ll notice the littlest imperfection in your outfit.

3. Dark wash jeans are your best friend
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While it’s true that black, white, khaki, and colored jeans can look awesome, they all go through their fazes of being “cool” or in style. Dark wash blue jeans are your one pair that will never have to leave you. I’d suggest investing a decent amount into these. The ones listed above you can get at Nordstrom for $82.00. Make sure to get “straight leg” versus skinny or slim fit.

4. You’re not 16 anymore, so keep your shoes cleaned
Pair of Dirty Worn Shoes Stacked on One Another Isolated on White Background.

Please, never wear old running shoes outside of the gym. Scoffs and dirty shoelaces can be cleaned with dish soap or hydrogen peroxide with minimal effort. Take the time to clean them so your shoes are always looking new. If they don’t look new after a good cleaning, it’s time to invest in a new pair.

5. Wear your Inner Confidence
The best thing you could ever own is you. Whatever outfit you’re in, no matter the setting, it’s important to carry yourself with a strong and confident demeanor. Especially when meeting women, always greet people with a firm, strong handshake. Look at people in the eye, and smile when they’re talking to you. Stay in good shape. Taking charge of your overall health is a necessary and admirable trait. If you believe you’re the best, other people will too.

Building Location Independence

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

Guest post by Patrick, Leverage Program member

For the past month, I have been building a new lifestyle for myself. I’ve been working towards complete location independence. I spoke with a friend yesterday who’s also interested in a similar lifestyle. He wants to work remotely and travel comfortably, while not depleting his bank account.

I told him he should work while he travels, and his first response to me was “It’s a good idea, but I’m just trying to figure out the kind of work I can do while I travel. I’ve been in the restaurant industry for 15 years, and the skills I have aren’t that transferrable, or easy to automate.”

What do you think my first reaction to his response was? I thought it was crazy! He’s been in his industry for 15 years, and has developed some of the most transferrable skills in the world. Every cruise ship, hotel, city, and town in the world has a need for people who excel at managing restaurants, working with people, and understanding customer service.

He’s only thinking of hard skills, and forgetting what could be arguably more important in his case: soft skills. Hard skills are those that one learns through academic, formalized, or professional training. They are skills such as how to code, how to change a tire, or how to swim. It is any skill that can be described by an ordered process, or a specific technique.

This is in contrast to a soft skill, which is acquired outside the traditional methods of teaching, such as social skills, awareness, or writing. Soft skills tend to be much broader in scope, making them more difficult to target for improvement, yet more important as they affect many areas of your life.

My friend has clearly been very successful in his industry- you have to be if you have been there for 15 years. He’s just forgetting about the soft skills he’s developed that can form the foundation of a remote career. He’s only thinking of hard skills.

What he needs to do now is start to become know as a leader and expert in his field. There are several ways to do this. With a little bit of work, I fully believe he will have people knocking at his door, or rather his email inbox, looking to hire him.

One of the first thing I suggested he do is to start writing about his experiences. He should write about everything: what he does every day, how manages his team, what drinks he makes, how to deal with unhappy customers. Just write about everything!

Writing is the easiest way to become known as a subject matter expert in your industry, and with the internet, there is no barrier to entry to get your writing published. All he needs is to open up an account on medium.com or some other blogging website and click upload. Instantly his work is live for others to see and start recognizing him as the industry expert that he already is. Writing is also great because it helps you develop your skills and discover yourself, as Daniel Pink discusses here in this must-watch convocation speech:

The next thing he is going to have to start doing it putting himself out there and networking with people. While writing is one piece of the puzzle, until people actually know who you are, you can’t become known as that industry expert. Networking is probably the most important skill there is. That said, don’t think of it as “networking,” and instead concentrate on building your social life. When you go into a situation with the “networking” mindset, you fail before you’ve gotten there because your mindset sabotages your approach. You becomes completely inauthentic. But if you go to have fun, take a genuine interest in people and give zero fucks, you create real relationships that lead to the kind of lifestyle you want to build.

People like to relate to people, and once someone gets to know you and like you as an individual, they are going to want to hire you to do what you are an expert in. I told my friend that he can then leverage his writing with these people you network with to give himself credibility. Once someone talks to you and you can back it up with content you’ve created, you have now added the second piece of the puzzle to get to that goal of becoming that subject matter expert.

The third thing I think he is going to have to do is make the jump. At some point, he is going to have to force starting a location independent lifestyle, whether he has the money to do it or not. There is no better way to immerse yourself in a lifestyle than to just start doing it. I don’t know his current financial situation, but at the very least he probably has enough saved up for at least a couple months of travel. You can always return to your old life, but starting a new one is a jump that takes a big leap of faith.

Let’s take myself as an example. I’m doing the same right now- I am writing this post from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a cruise ship bound for Europe. I’m living on savings right now, but rather than viewing traveling as an expense, I’m viewing it as an investment in my future. I now have time to work on my own projects, work on my writing, and do things that are important to me. When I had a full-time 9-5 job in New York City, I never had those opportunities, since I was always dependent on what my boss wanted me to do during the day rather than what I wanted to do. I can always go back to my old lifestyle if I want to. I won’t always have the opportunity to travel and invest in myself, and now is the time.

It all really comes down to focusing your energy in the direction you want to head, and building transferable skills you can leverage. You need to start doing something and putting yourself out there- the rest will fall into place with time after you make the leap of faith.

You Should Dump Your Girlfriend

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

Guest post by Jay, Leverage Program member

It’s easy to fall into the trap of letting a girl who isn’t really a good fit for you stick around because she prevents you from feeling lonely.

We all feel lonely at times. It’s part of the human condition. And for guys who aren’t naturally good with women, it’s normal to feel lonely most or even all of the time.

When you start developing your skills, having success is inevitable. You’ll start to get numbers, you’ll start to get dates, you’ll start to make out with women, and you’ll start to sleep with ones you like.

Once you start sleeping with the kinds of women that you like, there’s a critical point where you have to stay on your path. It’s easy to get sucked into a relationship by default, that happens from settling with someone who makes you feel less alone. That feeling of loneliness? The novelty of a new sexual relationship is one powerful way to drown it out.

Too many guys end up dating girls long-term just by default. They never made the conscious decision to do it, but they end up with her because it fills a space in their lives, and the access to sex is a powerful motivator.

What they don’t realize is that space will always be there, and is part of being human. The only thing that you should attempt to use to fill that space is your drive to be better. Part of being a man and accepting your place as an adult is a constant drive for self-improvement. And that emptiness you feel will only get better through your journey of self-improvement, not by a woman.

Friday night dates. Complacency. Stuck banging one girl forever. Not having threesomes. Never traveling. Having the same lame friends. No self-growth. These thoughts seem like a great foundation for a happy relationship, so how could this touching story come to a bad ending?

Now of course if you’re not having these thoughts and are actually completely satisfied in your relationship with zero doubts, regrets, or insecurities, then I’m not talking about you. You’re already winning. However, if you are experiencing these feelings and emotions, stay with me. I’m not going to focus on the negative actions some girls do, because that’s playing the victim game- a game for losers. I’m just going to focus on things from a personal level. Your life is on you. No one else.

Nothing is worse in a relationship than that moment you realize you’re unsatisfied. Even if you get an attractive girlfriend, have a great time for a while, enjoy love, have weird sex, and experience shit together, eventually your insecurities creep back. That little voice in your head comes back and says “Hey motherfucker, I’m still here.” It’s not really noticeable when you’re in the early stages of intimacy, but as the excitement starts to wear off, the thoughts of being unsatisfied start to creep in.

There’s a number of reasons why you might not be satisfied. Your personal social circle isn’t fully developed. Your girlfriend isn’t cool and open-minded to threesomes and other sexual exploration. You feel like you deserve a better girl. You’re not getting better at the things that are important to you. You haven’t traveled and experienced enough. And on and on.

If you’re carrying these thoughts with you while in a relationship, there’s no way that it will have a happy ending, not with all that dissatisfaction. It’s unfair to the girl. No matter what she does, she can never make you happy. It’s literally impossible. The only way you can be fully happy is if you go hard on reaching your full potential and doing everything you actually want to do to resolve these issues.

When I was going through multiple relationships, I’d be initially excited in the honeymoon phase, lose some interest in the middle phase, and then feel married and not giving a fuck by the end of the relationship. The girls were attractive, had cool friends, and liked my personality. But even with all that, I just felt dead every time. I wasn’t satisfied on the inside. My real needs and desires weren’t being fulfilled, and so I wasn’t happy.

After having enough of these girlfriends, I finally started seeing the picture. I wasn’t into monogamy and jealous atmosphere it brought to the relationship. Threesomes and sexual exploration were important to me, but my relationships had been too tightly knit to allow those things to happen. My weekends were being sucked away with Netflix and pointless dates. My social circle was lacking. I wasn’t developing as a man and becoming a winner.

There was a ton of other shit I was unsatisfied with, as far as my self-growth, like lack of traveling and new experiences, poot fitness, bad finances, but one thing was killing me the most. I felt terrible about being unskilled with girls, and never having massive success with women. I was always having to fight hard just to get one girl, feeling like I couldn’t easily replace them or pick the ones I actually wanted. Just because I was able to repeatedly get girlfriends or hook up with a decent amount of girls (between relationships), it hadn’t resolved my deepest insecurity: my lack of skills and confidence with women. I was sick of it.

Even if the girl was cool, I just couldn’t live with the thought of never being 100% of what I could be. I wanted full control over my life. If I never developed myself into a sick individual and started becoming a winner who could actually get with the type of girls I deserved and wanted, I knew I would never be happy. That was the one thing I had to have to be able to die in peace.

When I finally dumped my last girlfriend, it was liberating. I felt relieved. I felt no pain. I gave no fucks. I could focus on my business, my dick (me), 24/7. I immediately improved my career and income. Started getting in shape again. I did some traveling. And more importantly, I finally found the type of coaching I was looking for and started addressing this issue. Have there been roadblocks? Of course. Am I doing the things I want at a high level yet? No. I fell in a couple gutters in the past year and had some hard times. But despite that, I’m pumped and feel alive every day, knowing I’m on track working toward my goals.

Look, I get it. It’s easy to be complacent. Who doesn’t like easy pussy? Your girlfriend might have a cool social circle and you might do cool shit together. But if you’re not satisfied, if you have insecurities and doubts in your head, don’t ignore them, even if your realizations are painful. You gotta dump your girlfriend and handle your shit until you can be satisfied with yourself. That way when you do pick a girl and hang up the jersey, you can do it without any regrets.

Don’t let validation fill the emptiness you feel inside. If you don’t, you’re basically gonna be 49, jacking off to weird porn in the shadows on Sunday at 2pm in your carpeted Downey apartment with erectile dysfunction, thinking about how you wish you had threesomes, had more weird sex, banged more girls, connected with more females, traveled more, did more self development, took more risks, etc. Don’t be that guy.

Validation gives you a temporary high. Settling in an unsatisfying relationship provides you with a dull numbing of that pain. In contrast, allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable rather than settling for whatever provides you validation or comfort, is scary. You’ll feel lost at times. You’ll feel like maybe you aren’t making the right choices, and that maybe you shouldn’t try to improve this area of your life. Your inner voice can be a nagging demon that holds you back.

But look past it. Never accept mediocrity. Understand that these feelings are part of the journey, and that this empty space will only be fulfilled by living a life of your values, and by always striving to be a better version of the man you want to become. No relationship or sexual experience can fill that void. The only thing that will do it is consistent hard work, every day for the rest of your life. That’s what’s truly rewarding and fulfilling about this journey. The relationships you’ll start to form are just a side effect of being a fulfilled man who’s living his purpose.

If You Play it Safe You’re Boring

by Tyler W 1 Comment

When you look at guys who are great with women, or anyone with peak social awareness, they perform a bunch of smaller actions that add up to an arsenal of social skills. These discrete skills combine to form a killer ability to communicate with others and assertively get what they want.

When we’re teaching you to improve your dating life, we focus on a lot. Accumulating as much practice as you can and playing the “numbers game” is part of it. Developing your character is also part of it, and it can seem overwhelming to go from where you are now to the success you really dream of.

While it’s true that there are millions of little moves you’ve got to understand, it’s also true that what often looks like natural competence with women is the result of daily habits constructed over a long period of time. Guys who do well with women tend to have just naturally absorbed attractive behaviors from role models such as fathers, teammates, coaches, and friends. And one thing guys who are successful have in common is that they never play it safe.

Guys don’t take risks in conversation because they don’t want to piss people off, say the “wrong thing”, or get rejected. So they play it safe, and end up being boring.

When guys want to play it safe, the things they do in one-on-one conversations or in social situations are seeking a reaction, seeking relevance to whatever is being discussed, and to ward off FOMO. They’re seeking validation and avoiding taking risks. It’s easier to force a pity laugh by making a lame, non-risky joke than to take a stand and disagree with others.

It’s easy to say “stop giving a fuck what other people think” but that isn’t actually helpful because it doesn’t tell you what to do instead. Conversations are only hard or scary if you aren’t confident in what you’re discussing, so guys often ask for topics they should discuss. What they’re missing is that no one can tell you what to say. It’s something you have to develop on your own with a lot of practice.

That means a lot of trial and error. That means a lot of putting your foot in your mouth. Everyone starts out saying lame stuff, then they get better. Reading feedback is key, and since humans are naturally social, this happens automatically. You read the feedback of others you interact with and passively develop s sense of pattern recognition around having exciting conversations.

Talk to everyone. A study done at the University of British Columbia showed that if you interact with more people throughout the day, you’ll be happier and have a stronger sense of belonging, and it doesn’t even matter if they’re good friends or just casual acquaintances. Everyone wants to have fun conversations and you can easily be the guy who delivers that experience. Talking to everyone you encounter throughout your day teaches you how to push past fear, and you get tons of reps starting conversations with strangers.

Over time, you’ll start to surprise yourself with the things you say in conversation. You won’t really be sure where they come from, but you’ll spontaneously come up with great, witty content and banter. Being cool is when you’re not easily excitable about stuff that doesn’t involve you, and not being easily excitable in general, and eventually you’ll automatically reach this point.

Do this: Say more crazy stuff and stop trying to play it safe. You’ll get better the more you practice.

The 8 Ways to Click With Women

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

Guest post by Jay, Leverage Program member and resident lazy fuck

I’ve been working on my connection skills, and the group recommended I check out a book called Click: The Forces Behind How We Fully Engage with People, Work, and Everything We Do. The book is basically a collection of tons of examples and studies going over each aspect that creates instant connections, or what they call “quick set intimacy”: That magic moment when you feel like you’re in the zone while talking to another person, like you’re 10/10 on 3 pointers. Except the baskets are people. Or something.

So here are the 8 methods the authors describe to click with people:

1. Clicking
Clicking with someone is basically the most powerful tactic. Getting this ‘quick set intimacy’ allows things to quickly escalate, whether it’s escalating with a girl, establishing a friendship, or kicking ass with business partners/teammates. Even if you literally have nothing in common with a girl other than just the ‘clicking’, it’s super effective. The study showed ‘logical’ marriages lasted just as long as marriages where the only thing in common the couples had was ‘clicking’.

2. Vulnerability
Most interactions between people are at the “transactional level”, or boring shit about information. Taking risks and being vulnerable, sharing some private information about yourself, can open up the connection. This is one tactic I actually use a decent amount. I like to drop some low-key vulnerability to see if I can quickly connect with new co-workers or other people I’ve just met. I’m pretty good with this when establishing friendships/business relationships but I need to use it more when I’m connecting with girls on dates or when I’m approaching.

3. Proximity
The science behind this is that the closer you are to people, the more likely you are to connect. This is common sense and something I understand personally, but it’s cool to see scientific studies show how much insanely better the connection is if you’re directly around someone all the time. Just putting yourself in situations where girls are on a consistent basis is enough to get you laid a lot of the time. I’ve definitely gotten pussy for no reason other than because I was there and able to make a quick connection. This also ties right into approaching as much as possible. The other aspect of this is hanging around cool dudes consistently (IC dudes, mods) and getting a better connection with successful people like that. You only get the connection if you’re consistently around. And with that connection comes osmosis and other opportunities.

4. Resonance
Being in the flow of things. Keep being in the moment with the people around you. Continually take their emotional temperature and play to that. I would say I’m somewhat oblivious and sometimes not giving a fuck about my surroundings. I’m definitely easily distracted. What I need to do is get in the “zone” and be fully engaged with my surroundings and the people around me. They use an example of being in the zone in a basketball game as an analogy and I think that makes it pretty clear. If you try to be more engaged with your surroundings, then you can get into this state and easily connect with people.

5. Similarity
Basically any type of similarity, big or small, connects people. Even if the only thing you share with another person is a name, science shows you’re way more likely to connect with that person quickly. It also says that something almost pointless, like having the same birthday, is basically as effective for quickly connecting people as having the same political beliefs or religion. I do this to an extent socially but I could get more creative and find clever ways to use similarities and make better connections with girls.

6. Environment
When you’re in places where you have to go through shit with people, like bootcamps, intensive classes, war, etc, it creates connections. You bond over the intense crap you had to get through together. For me personally, I had this in my Web Development bootcamp where I was with the same 40 people 12 hours per day, for 12 weeks. I’m still friends and could hang out with at least 15 of these people. This also applies to three or four days of partying in a row where you’re hanging out with the same people. Getting through all the partying together seems to be effective in building connections.

7. Naturals
Basically the explanation of “naturals” is that they are “high self monitors” who instinctively change their emotions to match and meet people emotionally, and maybe even mirror body language. I could definitely be more attentive to what people around me are doing while I’m connecting with them and match my behavior more effectively. When I’m in the mindset of reading people and calling things out I am able to see a lot of this stuff, but if I’m not, I miss a lot of it. I’ve been working on reading people and calling shit out a lot lately, even just in normal interactions. I’ve noticed without a doubt that it brings out more emotion in people.

8. Effectiveness
People who click perform at a way higher level than people who don’t click, even if everyone involved is sick. It’s important to “click” with the people you start businesses with, girls that you are potentially going to see regularly, and the dudes you hang out with. You will dominate shit if you’re clicking with everyone.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t completed a book since I was like 17, other than three or four books on Texas Hold’em (which I read in one sitting each) and some Dr. Seuss shit. So I’m gonna go ahead and give myself a big fucking pat on the back for seeing this through to the end.